Order parameter criticality of the d = 3 random-field Ising antiferromagnet Fe0.85Zn0.15F2

The critical exponent beta=0.16+/-0.02 for the random-field Ising model order parameter is determined using extinction-free magnetic x-ray scattering for Fe0.85Zn0.15F2 in magnetic fields of 10 and 11 T. The observed value is consistent with other experimental random-field critical exponents, but disagrees sharply with Monte Carlo and exact ground state calculations on finite-sized systems.     

Experimental evidence of the superposition of short laser pulses in a dye medium

Pairs of 10 ps ruby laser pulses were sent into a solution of oxazine 1 perchlorate in glycerine. Relative amplication of the second pulse was observed when the time interval between the two pulses was longer than the solvent-solute relaxation time but shorter that the fluorescence time. This verifies the superposition scheme proposed recently by Chin.     

Comments on “mode-locked pulses of homogeneous gain lasers”

Radmore's criticism of a paper by Piché and Bélanger concerned with the mode-locked pulses emitted by a loss modulated homogeneous gain laser is shown to be misleading.     

Precise mass measurement of a double-stranded 500 base-pair (309 kDa) polymerase chain reaction product by negative ion electrospray ionization Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry

Electrospray ionization Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (ESI-FTICRMS) has been used to determine the mass of a double-stranded 500 base-pair (bp) polymerase chain reaction (PCR) product with an average theoretical mass of the blunt-ended (i.e. unadenylated) species of 308 859.35 Da. The PCR product was generated from the linearized bacteriophage Lambda genome which is a double-stranded template. Utilization of ethanol precipitation in tandem with a rapid microdialysis step to purify and desalt the PCR product was crucial to obtain a precise mass measurement. The PCR product (0.8 pmol/μL) was electrosprayed from a solution containing 75% acetonitrile, 25 mM piperidine, and 25 mM imidazole and was infused at a rate of 200 nL/min. The average molecular mass and the corresponding precision were determined using the charge-states ranging from 172 to 235 net negative charges. The experimental mass and corresponding precision (reported as the 95% confidence interval of the mean) was 309 406 +/- 27 Da (87 ppm). The mass accuracy was compromised due to the fact that the PCR generates multiple products when using Taq polymerase due to the non-template directed 3'-adenylation. This results in a mixture of three PCR products with nearly identical mass (i.e. blunt-ended, mono-adenylated and di-adenylated) with unknown relative abundances that were not resolved in the spectrum. Thus, the experimental mass will be a weighted average of the three species which, under our experimental conditions, reflects a nearly equal concentration of the mono- and di-adenylated species. This report demonstrates that precise mass measurements of PCR products up to 309 kDa (500 bp) can be routinely obtained by ESI-FTICR requiring low femtomole amounts. Copyright 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stereoselective Synthesis of the Halaven C14–C26 Fragment from D‐Quinic Acid: Crystallization‐Induced Diastereoselective Transformation of an α‐Methyl Nitrile

Crystallization‐induced diastereoselective transformation (CIDT) of an α‐methyl nitrile completes an entirely non‐chromatographic synthesis of the halichondrin B C14–C26 stereochemical array. The requisite α‐methyl nitrile substrate is derived from D ‐quinic acid through a series of substrate‐controlled stereoselective reactions via a number of crystalline intermediates that benefit from a rigid polycyclic template. Therefore, all four stereogenic centers in the Halaven C14–C26 fragment were derived from the single chiral source D ‐quinic acid.     

High order shear horizontal modes for minimum remnant thickness

Thickness mapping in aging structures suffering from corrosion is challenging especially when the structure is only partially accessible. In plates the high order shear horizontal guided wave modes all have a cutoff frequency thickness product below which they cannot propagate. This property is potentially attractive to estimate the minimum remnant thickness between two transducers. When using a source and a sensor array it is possible to control the number of modes being excited and the size of the region interrogated by the technique. Finite element simulations were used to show that by exciting multiple guided wave modes simultaneously and identifying which modes are received by a sensor array it is possible to estimate the minimum remaining thickness along the propagation path. Initial experimental results showed excellent agreement with the finite element simulations when the plate is uniform and with a thickness reduction between the source and the sensor arrays the minimum remnant thickness was underestimated by approximately 20%.